PotBS beats WoW

... in having a better auction house system for the trade in commodities. :) In most other respects World of Warcraft is superior to Pirates of the Burning Sea, and one can even argue that the WoW AH system is fine for trading loot gear. But for commodities, the trade goods that get bought and sold very often, the WoW auction house system is terrible.

Besides daily quests I make some money every day with my warrior, who is also an alchemist, by transforming a cheap primal earth into an expensive primal water. So when I put my primal water on the AH, I do what everybody does: I first check the current prices. And if the lowest buyout price is 20 gold, I put up mine for 19.95 and am sure to sell mine before the other guy. The people who put up their goods earlier are losing out, because I see exactly what their buyout price is, and can easily undercut them by 0.25% at insignificant loss to me to jump the queue and be first in line for the buyers.

Pirates of the Burning Sea has a blind auction house system. You see how many goods of one type there are, and you see recent prices, plus the average over the last 30 days in the region and globally. But you don't see the buyout price that the other players put up their wares on. You can theoretically find it out by bidding first 1 doubloon, then 2 doubloon, then 3 doubloon, and so on until you find the lowest buyout. But that takes too much time, and you'll end up buying one item from the competition which is counterproductive if you only wanted to sell a small quantity.

Apparently there are plans to make the PotBS auction house system even better in some future patch by introducing buy orders, just like EVE Online has. That would be interesting for World of Warcraft too. Imagine you could post an offer that you're willing to buy up to 5 primal waters for 20 gold each, log off, and find the goods in your mailbox the next time you log on. A system that shows both buyers and sellers offers, like a stockmarket, ends up giving much more reliable and less volatile prices. And you aren't punished for having put up your items at the wrong time, just 5 minutes before somebody undercuts you.